Saturday, July 02, 2016

MUSLIM DECLARATION OF FAITH

The syahadah or the declaration of Muslim faith is an important pillar
of faith. Customs or what one inherits from one’s ancestors is almost always
different from what is taught by God and his Prophet. This pillar is stated in Surah 3, verse 18. The full verse goes,
“God bears witness that there is no god except He, and so do the angels and
those who possess knowledge, truthfully and equitably; He is the absolute god,
there is no god but He, the Almighty, Most Wise.”

Among the sectarian Sunnis, they add: “I bear witness that
Muhammad is the messenger of God.” This so-called second syahadah is, however, rendered null and void in Surah 63: verse 1 by God and His messenger. Those who declare it
are hypocrites!

To prove that what we say is
correct, we have to quote other verses. One of them goes, “When God alone is
mentioned, the hearts of those who do not believe in the Hereafter shrink with
aversion. But when others are mentioned besides him, they rejoice.” (39: 45).
More. “You shall know that there is no god besides God.” (47: 19). Also 4: 87;
40: 65; and 27: 44 (syahadah of the Queen
of Sheba[1].
Also thecorrect syahadah of the Pharaoh of the time of Moses, but was not accepted
by God as he was doing that only when he was drowning! (10: 9). Also the
sincere syahadah of Pharaoh’s
magicians (7: 121-122) when they lost their contest with Moses; and the syahadah of Abraham and his descendants.
(2: 131-133).

So was all
Jewish prophet-mesengers’ declaration of faith. Had it been different, it would
have made Islam not one religion, but many. This is impossible.

Yet, truth
to tell, the entire Muslim world practices two syahadah. Or most Muslims do. They read the same scripture, the
Quran, but their understanding of this most important pillar of faith is
different. How do you account for it? The answer is contained in verse 2 of the
second Surah. The verse goes, “ This
is the scripture, no doubting it, is a guide for the conscientious.” Who can
give guidance? Only God can, and no one else; not even Prophet Muhammad. Recall
that Muhammad was unable to persuade his Quraisy unbelieving relatives to
become Muslims!

I want to
pose the mother of all questions. Thirty years after Muhammad’s death, the Arab
armies of liberation liberated the whole of the then hegemonic powers, the Persian
and the Byzantian Empires. Islam became the lone superpower, to last for eight
centuries. Medieval Europe sat to learn at the feet of Baghdad for three
centuries. [2]
That gave rise to the European Renaissance.

My mother of
all questions is: Have any modern Muslim thinkers tackled the problem of the
second rise of Islam( the true Islam, that is)? I would like to meet him,
congratulate him and to propose to him to begin the second Islamic Renaissance.
It is high time, seeing that liberal-capitalist Europe and America are
collapsing.

About Me

(About Kassim Ahmad
By: M. Bakri Musa)
Kassim Ahmad is Malaysia's foremost thinker and philosopher. He grabbed national headlines in the 1950s with his dissertation on the characters of Hang Tuah (Perwatakan Hang Tuah), the Malay literary classic. In it he challenged the traditional interpretation and made the hitherto hero Hang Tuah as nothing more than a palace hack, and elevated the anti-hero Hang Jebat as the true hero, willing to kill even the sultan in defence of honor and principles.
Kassim was jailed for nearly five years under the ISA for daring to express openly his political views, an experience which he recounted in his book, Universiti Kedua (Second University).
Kassim again shook the Malay world with his "Hadith: A Re-Examination" in which he challenges the infallibility of the purported words of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.
Except for an honorary doctorate in Letters conferred by the National University of Malaysia, the country has not seen fit to honor this great public intellectual.
June 2005